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The Chennai
Declaration
9 April
2005
Preamble:
We,
the participants of the post-tsunami PHM Dialogue held in Chennai from 8-9
April 2005 pledge to strive for a people-centred approach in the
rehabilitation of affected communities that sees them not as passive
beneficiaries of aid but as active participants in their own empowerment.
We firmly believe that all rehabilitation work and processes should ensure
equity and dignity of both the affected people and the communities they
live with or amidst. We firmly believe that aid is a right and not a charity. We celebrate the tremendous generosity
and solidarity expressed by people the world over towards the
constellation of suffering that only became visible on 26 December 2004
Issues
of Concern
Human
rights and politics of aid:
The
current substandard quality of relief and rehabilitation must and can be
raised by increasing the level of participation of the communities
affected by the disaster.
Understand
the various problems of the post-tsunami situation in a holistic and
historical manner and not just as arising from the disaster on 26 December
2004
Respond
to the post-tsunami situation in a way that helps build long-term
traditions of respect for human rights among both affected communities as
well as those interacting with them in any manner.
Emphasize
the human rights of affected communities, balancing concepts of
traditional rights with those arising from the various international
declarations and treaties on human rights
A
reliable database of all affected communities should be created to ensure
fairness in rehabilitation.
Defend
the rights of people affected by tsunami from forced evictions,
discrimination in provision of relief, cheating and exploitation by
commercial interests
Rehabilitation
and development measures should be environmentally sound, sustainable and
appropriate to local culture and tradition.
NGOs
and other stakeholders should work together of plan and implement
rehabilitation and development initiatives
Promote
community ownership of assets created
Ensure
that all new constructions are disaster safe and provide for the future
expansion and set up community infrastructure to protect people from
various disasters
Make
sure that livelihood options are locally relevant and acceptable and do
not lead to indebtedness or dependence of any kind
Donations
should be culturally sensitive and should not be damage the local economy
through dumping or be a means of introducing GM foods. Aid should not be
used for market promotion of products such as inappropriate
pharmaceuticals. Clothes, particularly second hand clothes are not
appropriate donations.
Women
should be part of relief and rehabilitation planning and implementation.
this can be made possible by equal representation of women in the relief
and rehabilitation committees.
Encourage
the formation of women’s organisations such as self-help groups, make
them accessible to all women in the organization and encourage these
organizations to be more proactive to become sustainable
Promote
joint ownership of newly-created assets among all members of affected
families so that gender disparities are not further widened.
Rehabilitation,
disaster response and development
Rehabilitation
and development measures should ultimately lead to more social, economic
and gender equity and reduce the vulnerabilities of local people to future
disasters.
Relief,
rehabilitation and development measures should make use of locally
available resources and employ local people
Make
provision for the car and security of caregivers
General
Principles
The
situation prior to the disaster should not be taken as the standard of
rehabilitation efforts and all efforts should be made to achieve as high a
standard of living as possible for affected communities
The
local community, local self-governance institution and elected
representatives should have a key role in relief and rehabilitation
planning and implementation
The
land rights of affected communities mist be fiercely protected and trey
must have a high degree of participation in resettlement
Relief
measures as well as livelihoods promoted as part of rehabilitation
measures should be ecologically sustainable
Create
decentralized disaster warning systems and should ensure community assess
and control
Disaster
preparedness
Ensure
right to information of affected communities about all rehabilitation and
development measures undertaken by the state and non.-government agencies,
both local and international
Non-government
agencies who have assumed responsibility in the post-disaster scenario for
function performed by the government must ensure the clear restoration.
Recognize
that post-disaster situations are often used as pretext by go government
and vested interests promote neo-liberal, anti-poor policies and
programmes including privatisation of common assets and denial of
customary law
Recognize
that the “disaster-affected” are not just those who are the most
directly and visibly struck and that the umbrella of disaster relief and
rehabilitation should be broadened
The
planning of relief and rehabilitation mist include clear time-frames
Mechanisms
needs to be put into place to monitor relief measures particularly to
ensure favourable programmes of development for marginalized communities
such as indigenous people, Dalits, ethnic and sexual minorities.
Expose
the politics of international aid that results in the strengthening of
exploitative hierarchies that existed in the pre-tsunami period
Oppose
the extensive use of military forces for relief and rehabilitation
operation in post-disaster situation
Ensure
transparency and accountability in rehabilitation operations in order to
better protect the rights of affected people especially in areas of civil
and armed conflict or without democratic representation
Community,
public health and psychosocial concerns
Strengthen
comprehensive primary health care systems with local community involvement
There
should be no discrimination of any marginalized social groups including
women, children, minorities, people with disabilities and senior citizens
Humanitarian
workers should be given basic training in psychosocial care
There
should be periodic assessment of public health status with community
participation covering aspects of psychosocial health and disability
Prevent
over-medicalization. Promote traditional and holistic problems of
treatment
Attention
should be focused on alcoholism-related problems and the situation leading
to alcoholism among disaster – affected communities
Emphasize
the responsibility of the state to ensure safe drinking water
Provide
adequate sanitation taking into account local needs and accep0tance
Health
facilities brought to disaster-affected communities should be sustainable
Ensure
food security and take care of special food and nutrition needs of
children
Address
ecological concerns while providing relief, make provision for waste
management and recycling facilities
When
providing public health facilities, ensure that health of animals to
protect livestock and to prevent outbreak of epidemics
Prevent
infectious diseases and ensure vector control
Defend
the rights of affected people to health care, water supply, nutrition,
education, employment and other basic necessities
Psychosoic1a
health can be promoted by ensuring that communities have a high degree of
participation as well as access to information during all relief and
rehabilitation operations
Gender
and social exclusion
Use
the rehabilitation process as an opportunity to capacitate and provide
skills especially to vulnerable and marginal section of the society.
Humanitarian
and state agencies should adopt a non-exclusive approach to distribution
of aid and strive to remove existing discriminator practices among the
affected population
Now Available
"Goodwill is not enough: A reflection on Post-tsunami disaster
response, a
discussion video based on the two day workshop,
strategies" is now available. For more information about the video
please contact the PHM Secretariat
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